1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a wiring harness protection material and a wiring harness.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, there has been a progress in high performance and high functionality mainly for automotive vehicles and electric appliances. Plural wires are used for internal wiring of automotive vehicles, electric appliances and the like to accurately operate various electronics such as automotive vehicles and electric appliances. Generally, these wires are used in the form of a wiring harness.
In the wiring harness, a wire bundle composed of a plurality of wires is fabricated in a form necessary for wiring in advance. For example, the wiring harness is formed by forming necessary branching, connecting connectors and the like to ends of the wiring harness and winding a wiring harness protection member around the outer periphery of the wire bundle.
The above-described wiring harness protection member used is made of a sheet-like wiring harness protection material formed into one of various shapes such as a recessed groove and a tube, and formed into a predetermined shape by covering the wire bundle.
Generally, a nonwoven fabric made using polyethylene terephthalate short fibers (may be also called PET nonwoven fabric) is used for industrial and automotive applications. The PET nonwoven fabric is utilized in various fields such as filter and cushion materials, vehicle interior sheet materials and vehicle interior ceiling materials. The present applicant and others previously proposed protection materials for wiring harness using a nonwoven fabric formed using polyethylene terephthalate short fibers (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-267412).
A wiring harness protection member using the wiring harness protection material disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-267412 is excellent in properties such as moldability and shape retention. The wiring harness protection member has a high possibility of being used in an on-vehicle environment having high temperature and high humidity when being used in an automotive wiring harness. However, the nonwoven fabric formed using polyethylene terephthalate short fibers has a problem of possibly reducing performance as a protection member since being degraded under high temperature and high humidity.
The present invention is designed to solve the problem of the prior art and aims to provide a wiring harness protection material utilized as a wiring harness protection member and having protection performance even in a high-temperature and high-humidity environment and a wiring harness.